Smith's New Accurate Map of the Lakes, 1800

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The popularity of the Lake District as a destination for tourists created a market for maps of the region that were not only accurate but also gave an impression of the scenery. In this map we can follow the course of the River Duddon from the Furness Fells down through Dunnerdale and beneath the shadow of Black Combe to the sea.

Black Combe features in two of Wordsworth’s poems. One was written to celebrate the work of the Ordnance Survey, which was producing comprehensive and detailed maps of the country. During 1807 and 1808, Captain William Mudge and his team of surveyors hauled their heavy equipment to the windswept peak of Black Combe. Wordsworth visited the summit where the "geographic labourer pitched his tent" and looked out over the landscape Mudge had surveyed, declaring it a "display august of man’s inheritance, of Britain’s calm felicity and power!"